Bipartisan coalition: debate footage must be public domain

With the first presidential debate set for Friday night, an array of prominent …

A broad, transpartisan group of online activists have released a letter to the McCain and Obama campaigns, calling on the candidates to hew to "open debate" principles when they face off in the coming weeks. The coalition is asking the campaigns to agree to insist on placing all video of presidential debates in the public domain, and to allow the questions at "town hall" debates to be selected—not just posed—by Internet users.

While many networks have already permitted their debate footage to be freely ripped, mixed, and burned, Fox News and MSNBC caught flack from both flanks during the primaries when it sought to prevent its footage from being posted online. The letter therefore asks the candidates to insist that any video of the debates be released into the public domain.

Somewhat more radically, the signatories are asking the candidates and networks to let Internet users vote on which questions should be posed, with moderators choosing a sampling from the top 25. The YouTube debate during the primaries was a good start, the letter argues, but "put too much discretion in the hands of gatekeepers." The result was a series of questions that were often "gimmicky and not hard-hitting enough"—think talking snowman—which "never would have bubbled up on their own."